Exodus 5:1: Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.'"
Nathan:
2 Samuel 12:7: Nathan said to David, "You are the man!"
Elijah:
1 Kings 18:17-18: When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?" And he answered, "I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals."
Micaiah:
1 Kings 22:24-26: Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, "How did the Spirit of the LORD go from me to speak to you?" And Micaiah said, "Behold, you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide yourself." And the king of Israel said, "Seize Micaiah . . . ."
Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 22:1-2: Thus says the LORD: "Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O King of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates.'"
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego:
Daniel 3:16-18: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."
John the Baptist:
Matthew 3:7: But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"
John the Baptist:
Matthew 14:3-4: For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her."
Jesus:
Luke 13:31-32: At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." And he said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.'"
Jesus:
Matthew 23:33: You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Jesus:
John 19:11: Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above."
Peter and the apostles:
Acts 5:29: But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men."
Paul:
Acts 16:35-37: But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, "Let those men go." And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace." But Paul said to them, "They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out."
Elizabeth Rundle Charles referring to Martin Luther:
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
I had the wonderful privilege of attending a Simeon Trust workshop on the book of Revelation this past week (hear our teacher, Pastor Ryan Bishop's sermons on the book in the series: Hold On, Christ Is Close). One of the concepts they teach us is the melodic line of a book. Simeon Trust defines melodic line this way:
Books of the Bible have a coherent and sustained message. It's like the unique melody of a song. It unites the whole book. And every passage will be related to the melodic line in some way.
During one of our large group teaching sessions, we brainstormed to get a rough draft of the melodic line of the book of Revelation. We came up with something like this:
Keep these words of Jesus Christ, the worthy Lamb Who was slain, conquer and endure as He conquered and endured, and you will be blessed. (See more on melodic line here and also here.)
I was moved to put the melodic line in poetic form:
It is a cry of real, objective, God forsakenness . . . Jesus felt forsaken because He was, at that moment, forsaken . . . God was angry, at this moment, with His Son. (A Cry, a Curtain, and a Confession, Mark 15:33-39) Kevin DeYoung
I love Pastor Kevin DeYoung's ministry and writing, I strongly commend it, and I thank God for him. I was so excited yesterday to receive the 30 copies of his new book, Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide To Systematic Theology, that I ordered to give to every family in my congregation. As is my custom, I'm most eager to see what he wrote about the cross in his chapter on Jesus being forsaken by God. But I was very disappointed in his chapter on Christ's cry of dereliction (Day 138, pages 201-202). I will still give the book away to my congregation, but with an added correction I'll write and insert for this particular chapter (Yes! I think it's that important!). Sadly, Pastor Kevin seems close to doing exactly what he says we should not do: ". . . we never want to lessen the pain and passion of Christ's cry on the cross . . . ." I hope you (and he) will consider why I'm so disappointed and concerned.
We Must Get The Trinity And The Cross Right
Faithful, orthodox Bible teachers have a right desire when explaining what Jesus suffered on the cross to also rightly explain the character of the Triune God and how the Persons of the Trinity are relating to one another in the midst of this great suffering of Jesus on the cross. My concern about the way Pastor Kevin has written about the cross has to do with this desire to get both the Trinity and the Cross right.
I realize Pastor Kevin is seeking to protect the truth that the Godhead did not disassemble on the cross. I agree with him that there was no intratrinitarian disruption, conflict, or separation - yes, the Trinity was not broken apart in that sense. But we must also be very clear that in history as the Mediator, there is a mysterious sense in which Jesus Christ, according to His human nature, was truly and objectively forsaken by God His Father on that cross: there's no hope without it! We must be careful to get the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Cross right.
Pastor Kevin's very clear explanation of the Communicatio Idiomatum (Pages 177-178 of Daily Doctrine) helps explain this mystery, and it's at the heart of all three of the main points (see below) I'm making in this article. Pastor Kevin writes:
. . . we can say, "God died on the cross," if we are using that as a title for the God-man Jesus Christ. (Daily Doctrine, 178)
In a similar way, speaking of the God-man Jesus Christ, we must say He was forsaken by God, that God was angry with Him, and God damned Him on that cross, according to His human nature. Derek Rishmawy has written a very helpful article affirming the classic doctrine of God and Biblical trinitarian theology as it relates to Christ's sufferings on the cross on this very point. He writes:
This grounds the doctrine of the communicatio operationem whereby we might truly confess according to Scripture that in the death of the Son “God purchased the church with his blood” (Acts 20:28). Because of this the Son acting in and through his human nature it is still the Son acting. When looking to the cross, then, we must be able to say the divine Son suffered these things because Jesus is the divine Son. But we also have to say the Son suffered according to, or by virtue of, his human nature. For according to our prior affirmations, by his divine nature he is impassible. In sum, if we speak of the Son suffering death, the consequences of sin or judgment, or God’s abandonment, or even hate, we speak truly of the suffering of the Son, but we inevitably are speaking according to his human nature. (A Less Odious Atonement Requires A More Classical God)
Later, Pastor Kevin writes this about Christ's session:
Considered as the divine Logos, Christ has always been at the right hand of God, working in accordance with the Father's omnipotent power. When considered as the incarnate mediator, however, Christ came at a moment in time to sit at the right hand of God. According to his divine nature, nothing new was bestowed upon Christ, but as the God-man, a new manifestation of power and a new installation of government was granted by virtue of his mediatorial work. (Daily Doctrine, 208)
In a similar way, Pastor Kevin should make this clear: considered as the divine Logos (the divine Son) in the eternal intratrinitarian relationship with His Father, the Son was not forsaken or damned by God nor was God angry with Him on the cross. But when considered as the incarnate mediator (the God-Man), however, Christ was at that moment in time on that cross, forsaken and damned, and God was angry with Christ on the cross so that sinners might be saved. Christ, according to His divine nature, was not forsaken, but as the God-man, according to His human nature, He most certainly was. We must affirm that, or we lose the Gospel. Consider this comparison:
The Person of Jesus was created and born according to His human nature. But the Person of Jesus was not created and born according to His divine nature because God cannot be created or born but exists eternally. (The "according to" language comes from Scripture: Romans 1:3: ". . . concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh . . . .")
The Person of Jesus got tired, hungry, and slept according to His human nature. But the Person of Jesus did not get tired, hungry, or sleep according to His divine nature because God cannot get tired, be hungry, or sleep.
The Person of Jesus died on the cross according to His human nature. But the Person of Jesus did not die on the cross according to His divine nature because God cannot die.
In a similar way, because our sins were imputed to the Person of Jesus, God the Father forsook, was angry with, and damned the Person of Jesus on the cross according to His human nature. But God the Father did not forsake, get angry with, or damn the Person of Jesus according to His divine nature because it is impossible for conflict (forsakenness, anger, damnation) to exist in the intratrinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son. But it was really God the Son (the Person of Jesus Christ) Who, according to His human nature, experienced the true relational reality of God-forsakenness, the anger of God, and damnation. But it was not the human nature which suffered, but the Person according to this nature. "And since the Person is infinite, all that Christ suffered was of infinite efficacy and value." (Wilhelmus à Brakel). Jesus did all of this so that we will never face those judgments. Hallelujah! What a Savior!
With that introduction in mind, here are three reasons I'm concerned about Pastor Kevin's teaching in Daily Doctrine on the forsakenness of Christ on the cross:
1. Jesus Was Forsaken By God On The Cross
Pastor Kevin seems to communicate that Jesus only felt forsaken on the cross and that He was not actually forsaken. He writes:
In his human consciousness, Christ experienced a true feeling of God-forsakenness . . . according to à Brakel, Christ was not forsaken by the Father, whose union could not be severed. (Daily Doctrine,201)
But this is not what à Brakel actually wrote. He nowhere wrote that "Christ was not forsaken by the Father." But he did write:
He [Jesus] was not forsaken by His divine nature, for the hypostatic union could not be dissolved. He was also not forsaken by the love of His Father, which remained immutable. (à Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service, 1.579)
On the contrary, à Brakel actually does affirm that Christ was forsaken by God:
Additional Objection: Christ’s human nature, in which He suffered, was finite and thus was not capable of bearing infinite wrath. Consequently His suffering was not sufficient to atone for sin which merits eternal punishment. Answer: We cannot determine to what degree Christ’s human nature was fortified, but it always remained finite. In this nature Christ endured a total being forsaken by, and the full wrath of, the infinite God against whom the elect had sinned. One should note, however, that it was not the human nature which suffered, but the Person according to this nature, and since the Person is infinite, all that He suffered was of infinite efficacy and value. (à Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service, 1.592)
à Brakel also wrote:
Christ did indeed suffer eternal damnation, for eternal damnation, death, & pain consist in total separation from God, in the total manifestation of divine wrath, & all of this for such a duration until the punishment upon sin was perfectly & satisfactorily born." (Wilhelmus à Brakel. The Christian's Reasonable Service, 1.591.)
I wish Pastor Kevin had been more clear that Jesus felt forsaken because He was, in some sense, truly forsaken. I've written about this point here: Forsaken Or Felt Forsaken?
Many theologians in church history agree that Jesus was truly forsaken on that cross and maintain orthodox Trinitarian theology at the same time. See: More Thoughts On Being God Forsaken
Herman Bavinck was right:
In the cry of Jesus we are dealing not with a subjective but with an objective God-forsakenness: He did not feel alone but had in fact been forsaken by God. His feeling was not an illusion, not based on a false view of his situation, but corresponded with reality. (Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, Vol. 3, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006, 389)
Herman Witsius was right:
Christ the Surety, in the fullness of time, underwent this same death of the whole man, in soul and body united, while on the cross he was forsaken of God . . . who punished him with affliction and imprisonment, which will be the punishment of the damned, as it was of Christ . . . . (The Economy Of The Covenants, 139-140)
John Murray was right:
It is only because Jesus was the Son, loved immutably as such and loved increasingly in His messianic capacity as He progressively fulfilled the demands of the Father's commission, that He could bear the full stroke of judicial wrath. This is inscribed on the most mysterious utterance that ever ascended from earth to heaven, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). God in our nature forsaken of God! Here is the wonder of the Father's love and of the Son's love, too. Eternity will not scale its heights or fathom its depths. (The Atonement)
R. C. Sproul was right:
His cry was not, as Albert Schweitzer opined, the cry of a disillusioned prophet who had believed that God was going to rescue him at the eleventh hour & then felt forsaken. He didn’t just feel forsaken; he was forsaken. For Jesus to become the curse, he had to be completely forsaken by the Father. (Far As The Curse Is Found and The Curse Motif of the Atonement)
Joel Beeke is right:
Outside an emergency room in a California hospital is a drop-off box for unwanted babies. The thought of abandoning one’s baby like dropping mail in a mailbox makes us shudder. Yet, when believers feel forsaken, it is like that: a feeling that does not correspond with reality. They lose the sense of God’s presence, but not this presence itself. With Christ this loss was both feeling and fact. He felt forsaken because He was forsaken. He endured the essence of abandonment . . . . (Christ Forsaken!)
To fathom the depths of what Christ endured we would need to spend eternity in hell. He was rejected by humankind, abandoned by God, subject to the full curse of the law and more besides . . . He endured the holy judgment of God against the unrighteous. He was made sin. He experienced the fearsome fate of falling into the hands of the living God, who is a consuming fire. He took our place as the guilty, the accursed, the covenant breaker. He was abandoned. He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (The Work Of Christ, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993, 133 & 142-143)
The suffering of David and the people of Israel - rejection, curse, and judgment - were ultimately and consummately experienced by David's greater son, the servant of the Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus experienced Psalm 89:38-45. And by that suffering Jesus restored the throne of David and saved the people of God . . . Psalm 89 gives us hope ultimately because it points us to the one who endured a suffering far beyond anything we will ever know. He was mocked and shamed and forsaken of God, so that we might be God's precious inheritance into eternity.
Jesus was truly & objectively forsaken by God on that cross so that everyone who repents and believes in Him will never be forsaken by God for all eternity!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Christ Jesus God Did Crush, Forsake
Rejected, Lost – Make No Mistake
Christ Didn’t Only Feel The Break
For All Our Sins God Did Him Make
God’s Anger On His Head He’d Take
And Die In Wrath – God’s Furry Lake
With Deepest Anguish – Hellish Ache
But Then Christ Rose Alive Awake
Caused The Earth To Move And Quake
It’s Here That Jesus Crushed The Snake
By Faith Alone We’re Just, Then Make
Progress In Holiness Partake
All For The Praise Of God’s Name Sake
We Boast And Shout And Dance And Shake
For God, Will Us, Never Forsake!
2. God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross
Pastor Kevin again appeals to Wilhelmus à Brakel, writing that God was not angry with Jesus on the cross:
"Christ was the Son of love, and as such God was not angry with Him. God was wrathful toward sin, however, and in righteously executing justice as Judge, caused Him who had taken sin upon Himself to feel this wrath." (Daily Doctrine,201)
I've never been able to understand how this kind of thinking is at best very inconsistent, and at worst a denial of penal substitution and the propitiation of God's anger toward sinners. à Brakel is probably following Calvin's unhelpful statement in his Institutes (I've written extensively on Calvin's inconsistency on this here). Like Calvin, à Brakel is inconsistent on this point because he also wrote:
Christ experienced the full force of the curse, the execution of what it is to be cursed (Gal. 3:10, 13), the just manifestation of divine wrath, the Lord's anger towards the sinner (Nahum 1:2), the terribleness of falling into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31), and the experience of God being a terror (Jer. 17:17). (à Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service, 1.580).
One has to wonder how Christ could endure all of that while at the same time not experiencing any of God's anger toward Him? John Calvin once asked the question:
How could He [God] be angry toward His beloved Son, "in whom His heart reposed"? (cf. Matt. 3:17) (Institutes, II.xvi.11)
I'll answer:
1) Because the Bible tells me so: "You have been very angry with Your Anointed One." Psalm 89:38
2) Because of the imputation of our sins to Christ: 2 Cor. 5:21: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
If you can't say God was angry with Christ on the cross because of our sins imputed to Him, then you should also stop saying that God is pleased with the saints because of Christ's righteousness imputed to them.
3) Because the words of Scripture demand that God be angry with His Son on the cross: He did not spare Him; He crushed Him; He struck Him; He cursed Him; He forsook Him; He pierced Him with His sword; He gave Him the cup of wrath; He turned His face away (Ps. 88).
4) Because God being angry with His Son on the cross is the heart of the Gospel - it is the very essence of what propitiation and penal substitution mean.
5) Because God never stopped loving His Son on the cross, as Thomas Goodwin wrote: "That God should never be more angry with his Son than when he was most pleased with him, for so it was when Christ hung upon the cross, God did find a sweet-smelling savour of rest and satisfaction even when he cried out, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"
6) Because God was not angry with His Son in the eternal, intratrinitarian relationship between the Persons. Yet, God was angry with Christ according to His human nature with all His infinite anger. But it was not the human nature which suffered, but the Person according to this nature. "And since the Person is infinite, all that Christ suffered was of infinite efficacy and value." (Wilhelmus à Brakel)
As mentioned in #5 above, Thomas Goodwin is a much more helpful guide. Yes, the Father always loved the Son on the cross, but the Father was also very angry with His Son because of our sins imputed to Him. God didn't merely punish sin on the cross, He punished His Son Who was made sin. This is the heart of propitiation and the heart of the Gospel. See Goodwin here: Thomas Goodwin On The Father's Love And Anger At The Cross
Consider a brief sample of Goodwin's excellent work on this point:
That God should never be more angry with his Son than when he was most pleased with him, for so it was when Christ hung upon the cross, God did find a sweet-smelling savour of rest and satisfaction even when he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Thomas Goodwin, The Works Of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4, Chapter 2, Glory Of The Gospel (Tanski Publications: Eureka, California: 1996), 275.)
And also this offering up himself was so sweet a smelling sacrifice to God (as Eph. V. 2), that although God expressed never so much anger against Christ as when he hung upon the cross, yet he was never so well pleased by him as then . . . . (Thomas Goodwin, Christ Our Mediator, (Sovereign Grace Publishers, Grand Rapids: 1971), 136.)
Herman Witsius was right:
Since there is an exchange of persons between Christ and believers, and since the guilt of our iniquities was laid upon him, the Father was offended and angry with him. (From: Love and Anger at the Cross?)
Let us remember the salient fact that the Father would soon abandon His beloved Son in Whom He found such delight . . . In relation to His death on the cross, God was never more pleased with His Son than when He was most angry with Him. (Knowing Christ, Page 82)
One Final Hope: The Gospel Of Jesus Christ . . . Ultimately, we'll never appreciate this psalm fully until we see how it points to our Savior. "But now you have cast off and rejected; you are full of wrath against your anointed" . . . Psalm 89:38-45 is a picture of the dashed hopes of the people of God. They were promised that David and his line would reign forever, but now that promise seems to have failed . . . This description of David and his line cannot be exhausted by the experiences of David and his sons. Instead, these words are true, in the fullest sense, of David's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
When I first became aware of men who (wrongly) say God was not angry with Jesus on the cross, I asked my Systematic Theology professor, Dr. David VanDrunen, about this error. He wrote me this helpful comment:
. . . it seems difficult to make sense of Jesus saying that he would drink of the cup (since in the OT "the cup" was the cup of wrath against the wicked) or of the terminology of propitiation if God's anger wasn't upon the Son in some important way. I agree with you that there's mystery here, although I think the explanation can be reasonably clear if we distinguish the eternal intratrinitarian relationship of Father and Son (in which it's impossible to think of one being angry with the other) from the historical relationship between the Father and the incarnate Son. Still mysterious, to be sure, but if we locate God's wrath against Christ in the latter we can avoid problems with our Trinitarian theology.
God was angry with Jesus on that cross so that He will never be angry with all those who repent and believe in Jesus!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Christ Jesus Is God's Anger Propitiation They'll Say Christ Bore God's Wrath For Every Nation
But Deny God Was Angry With Him Our Salvation Of The Heart Of The Gospel That's A Castration Not Precise Theological Thought Interpretation Since Christ Was Made Sin On That Cross By Imputation God's Word Says He Was Angry With The Beloved Incarnation Psalm 89:38, Crushed, Struck, Cursed, Full Damnation Drank God's Cup Of Anger: Hell's Fury Summation Pierced With God's Sword Of Anger Retaliation God Did Not Spare Any Anger Conflagration Toward Christ According To His Human Nature Mediation
He Died And Then Rose For Our Justification So Please Don't Propitiate God's Propitiation For This Is Our Only Hope Of Salvation Through Him Who's Our All And Praise Adoration!
3. Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross
Finally, Pastor Kevin argues that the word "damnation" should not be used to describe what Jesus suffered on the cross and calls on Francis Turretin as a witness:
As to the question of damnation, Turretin recognizes that many theologians have used condemnation and damnation somewhat interchangeably, but he argues that technically we should avoid the language of the latter - condemnation being a judicial sentence as opposed to the experience of damnation and despair in hell. "As he is properly said to be damned who in hell endures the punishment due to his own sins, this term cannot be applied to Christ, who never suffered for his own but for our sins; nor did he suffer in hell, but on earth." (Turretin, Elenctic Theology, 2.364) Christ experienced pain that was hellish, and he bore the punishment of those deserving damnation. But he did not enter the place of the damned or suffer in hell as the damned do. (Daily Doctrine, 202)
There is much I agree with here. For example: Jesus did not suffer for His own sins in hell but the hellish punishment for the sins of His people. But good men, (like Thomas Goodwin, one of the most respected Puritans who "stood up and spoke from the floor more often than any other [delegate] (357 times) at the creation of the Westminster standards in England in the 1640s" (Dane Ortlund)), have argued that Jesus' sufferings on the cross were even worse than those of the damned in hell:
Yea, and by reason of the incapacity of the damned in hell to take in the full measure of God's wrath due to them for their sins, therefore their punishment, though it be eternal, yet never satisfies, because they can never take in all, as Christ could and did, and so theirs is truly less than what Christ underwent. And therefore Christ's punishment ought not in justice to be eternal, as theirs is, because he could take it all in a small space, and more fully satisfy God's wrath in a few hours, than they could unto all eternity. (Thomas Goodwin, Christ Our Mediator, 484)
The Puritan, John Flavel, also argued that Christ's sufferings were worse than those suffered by the damned in hell:
Fourthly, As it was all the wrath of God that lay upon Christ, so it was wrath aggravated, in divers respects beyond that which the damned themselves do suffer. (John Flavel, The Seven Utterances Of Christ On The Cross, 65-66)
Flavel went on to give three reasons why this is the case.
Furthermore, Turretin himself wrote the term "damnation" is appropriate:
If Christ is called "a curse," why cannot damnation be ascribed to him? (Francis Turretin, Institutes Of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 2, Trans. George Musgrave Giger, Ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1994), 356.)
à Brakel used "damnation" to describe Jesus' sufferings (Note he also wrote of Jesus enduring "total separation from God"):
Christ did indeed suffer eternal damnation, for eternal damnation, death, & pain consist in total separation from God, in the total manifestation of divine wrath, & all of this for such a duration until the punishment upon sin was perfectly & satisfactorily born." (Wilhelmus à Brakel. The Christian's Reasonable Service, 1.591.)
Martin Luther is a good example (Happy Reformation month, by the way!):
So then, gaze at the heavenly picture of Christ, who descended into hell [I Pet. 3:19] for your sake and was forsaken by God as one eternally damned when he spoke the words on the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!" — "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" [Matt. 27:46]. In that picture your hell is defeated and your uncertain election is made sure. (Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 42, Eds. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 105.)
God doesn't merely send sin to Hell. God doesn't merely punish sin in Hell. God punishes sinners in Hell. And God didn't merely punish sin in His Son on that cross. Our sins were imputed to a man with a true human body - the God-Man Jesus Christ - and He suffered and died on that cross and God punished His own Son Who was made sin on that cross. Disembodied sin didn't die for us on that cross. Jesus, Who was made sin and Who knew no sin, was punished for us and died for us on that cross.
If you combined all the sufferings of all the people who have ever lived from the beginning of time until the end of time, and if you combined all the sufferings of everyone in hell for all eternity, Jesus' sufferings on that cross were far worse and far greater! Because of Who He was. Because of what He suffered. And because He said: "It is finished!" (John 19:30). Jesus paid it all!
Jesus was damned by God on that cross so that all who repent and believe in Him will never be damned but enjoy the blessing of God for all eternity!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Christ Jesus Endured Our Hellish Damnation For That Is The Heart Of Propitiation The Curse Of The LORD Was His Condemnation The Opposite Of God's Blessed Proclamation And Even Worse Did Christ Pay For Our Salvation For He's The Innocent Son Incarnation Who's Made To Be Sin By God's Imputation And Finished God's Wrath Forever Cessation He Died And Then Rose For Our Justification By Faith Alone He Saves From Every Nation By His Spirit He Works For Our Sanctification And He'll Hold Us Fast Until Glorification Where We'll Praise His Name In Glad Celebration For He Is Our All And Preoccupation!
Conclusion
Beloved, if Jesus was not truly and objectively forsaken by God on that cross, then we will be forsaken by God in Hell forever. If God was not angry with His Son on that cross, then He will be angry with us forever in Hell. And if God did not damn His own Son on that cross, then we will be damned in Hell forever. But Jesus was forsaken! Jesus did drink the cup of God's anger! Jesus was damned in our place! And God raised Him up from the dead so that we will never be forsaken! We will never bear God's anger! And we will never be damned! If you repent and trust in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, according to the Bible alone, for the glory of God alone, you shall be saved!
Pastor Kevin Has Gotten It Right Before
I miss the Kevin DeYoung who preached on Christ's cry of dereliction in Mark 15 and said what first introduced this article:
It is a cry of real, objective, God forsakenness . . . Jesus felt forsaken because He was, at that moment, forsaken . . . God was angry, at this moment, with His Son. (A Cry, a Curtain, and a Confession, Mark 15:33-39)
Amen Pastor Kevin! Hallelujah! What a Savior!
I hope and pray you and Pastor Kevin will consider these concerns of mine. May we get the cross right for the glory of King Jesus, for the good of His church, and for the salvation of lost sinners!
More Articles On The Cross
1. "American Gospel" Gets It Right explores who killed Jesus Christ and whether or not it's accurate to say God damned Jesus on the cross.
3. More Thoughts On Being God-Forsaken lists numerous faithful and trusted scholars, teachers, and preachers' teachings on the forsakenness of Jesus on the cross.
